


You Are My Sunshine

by dawningstars



Category: Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist (TV)
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Married!Clarkeman, Newborn Baby, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:47:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28114866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dawningstars/pseuds/dawningstars
Summary: Zoey is sleep deprived.
Relationships: Zoey Clarke/Max Richman
Comments: 7
Kudos: 23





	You Are My Sunshine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heartlikethat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartlikethat/gifts).



> Don't worry, I'm still working on the roommates fic, I just really needed to write some tooth-rotting fluff last night. I may have bolted upright at midnight, typed this out in an hour, and then went back to sleep...
> 
> Also, I decided to gift this little oneshot to heartlikethat, because taking breaks to read and reread their fics was what kept me somewhat sane during my last few term papers. You're the real MVP. (Never done the fic gifting thing before so hopefully I'm doing this right...)
> 
> Anyway, it's the holidays, we all deserve plotless, cavity-inducing fluff.

A piercing wail filled the air, and the tenuous silence was broken.

“Ung,” Zoey groaned, blearily opening her eyes. The clock on the bedside table read 2:03 AM in a shade of red that wasn’t nearly as maddening when they first bought it.

An arm tightened around her waist as she moved to get up. Max’s face was nuzzled into the crook of her neck, his steady breathing soothing, his warmth nearly irresistible.

Zoey sighed and extracted herself from her husband’s embrace. Probably the baby just needed a diaper change or to be burped. She'd thought Lexi had swallowed too much air last time she fed her. The baby monitor doubled Lexi’s cries again.

“Hun?” she heard Max ask in the darkness. His voice was gravely with sleep.

“I’m here, I’m going to go check on Lexi.” She yawned. “I swear she knows right exactly when I’m about to go into REM.”

She heard Max pull back the sheets, and then the soft sound of his socked feet meeting the floor. “Here, I’ll get her.”

“It’s my turn.”

“Zo, go back to bed,” Max said, his voice firm and slightly more alert. “You’re way more sleep deprived than me. _And_ you’re still recovering. If we need you, I’ll get you. But you need to rest.”

It was a tempting offer, and she was way too exhausted not to take him up on it.

“Okay,” she mumbled around a grateful yawn. “But…I’m gonna…do the next two shifts.”

“Fat chance. Get some rest, sweetheart, I’ve got her.”

Zoey let herself fall back down into bed and into a dreamless sleep.

Zoey woke again sometime later, not by a cry but by something gentle and tender that seemed to hover in the periphery. Whatever it was, it was very soft, and her ears strained to make it out.

She slid into her house shoes and followed the sound to Lexi’s nursery, where she found Max sitting in the rocking chair. She couldn’t quite see his face since the rocker faced the window in the far corner, but she could make out the tiny bundle swaddled in his arms.

Max gently rocked the two of them as he crooned, so softly,

_You are my sunshine,_ _  
My only sunshine.  
You make me happy  
When skies are grey.  
You’ll never know, dear,  
How much I love you.  
Please don’t take my sunshine away._

She’d seen Max sing lullabies to Lexi before, of course, but this image of the two of them, seemingly unobserved, was so sweet that it nearly broke her heart.

Somewhere, an invisible piano began to play, accompanying Max as he caressed Lexi’s forehead. She realized that the line between lullaby and heartsong had dissolved.

Zoey sagged against the doorframe when she heard another voice join Max’s. A perfect, tinkling, babbling little voice that couldn’t quite get the lyrics out. It could only be a heartsong. It was the most perfect duet she’d ever heard.

A sound must have come out of her because Max turned.

“Zoey? Are—are you okay? Zoey?”

She was crying.

Max got up, Lexi still in his arms, and crossed the room to her.

“Sweetheart, what is it?” he asked, a note of anxiety in his tone.

Zoey blinked back her tears and smiled up at him with only a slight tremble in her lips. “Everything’s fine, really good. It’s just—I love you.”

Max melted, as he always did when she said those precious words.

“I love you too,” he said, and she knew he meant it, as he always did, with every fibre of his being. "Couldn't sleep?"

She bent her head slightly to press a kiss to her now fast-asleep daughter’s head. “I heard you singing. It was sweet.”

“She’s getting used to my repertoire, I think,” he chuckled. “Puts her right to sleep. I’ll need to get a more exciting act at some point.”

Zoey rolled her eyes. “I think it’s perfect. And Lexi thinks so too.”

“Oh yeah?”

“She was singing with you.”

Max’s jaw dropped, and then his mouth worked for a few moments before he was able to ask: “She was?”

“She was. It was a heartsong. She couldn’t quite get the words out, but she was definitely singing with you. She loves her daddy so, so much.”

With the moonlight coming through the window, Zoey was able to see tears forming in Max’s eyes.

“I…”

He seemed to struggle to find words, before settling on the same ones she had.

“I love you.”

Max readjusted Lexi and used his free hand to draw her close. She wrapped her arms around him and the baby.

Despite the late hour and the chaotic haze of early parenthood, Zoey knew she’d always remember this moment.

It was one of the big ones.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd love to hear what y'all thought! Feedback really does make my week. 
> 
> Happy holidays! <3


End file.
